Beth's Blog: Nonprofits and Social Media

Notes, Reflections, and People I Met at Podcamp Boston

This weekend was Podcamp Boston 2.  I attended Saturday, but just like podcamp Boston 1 last year, I learned an incredible amount and met some extraordinary people.  Many thanks to organizers Chris Brogan and Chris Penn and all the people who worked hard to make it happen and especially the generous sponsors like Jeff Pulver.

Right before he bolted to watch the Red Sox Game, I was chatting with Bryan Person at the Saturday evening party.  He observed that Podcamp 2 was a lot about relationship building versus skill building.

I needed to spend Sunday with my kids who were more than happy to add another photo to the two-headed t-shirt collection.   It meant that I missed what Joe Casco had to say about Social Networking Fatique - I hope he blogs it)

David Tames and I did a session called crash course on social media tools for filmmakers.  I met Boston area documentary filmmakers including Marie Agui Carter  , Rhonda Moskowitz and Cheryl from Women in Film and Video New England.

David Eckoff and Chris Brogan
Photos by Steve Garfield

Chris Brogan and David Eckoff gave a killer session about setting priorities and time management techniques.  Chris reminded me of wisdom of Covey that I've forgotten and need to revisit.   David Eckoff shared a story about his email addiction and how he kicked the habit and got his life under control. 

I'm going to try this: Put an auto responder on your email telling people that due to email volume and deadlines you only read and respond to email between 11-12 and 4-5 and if it is urgent to call you on your mobile phone.  He said that in the first month of this experiment, he got two phones - one was really urgent and the other he had to give a lecture to the person about the definition of urgent.

I gave the Social Media Metrics session.  I was little nervous because I haven't presented on that topic and hope to develop it into a workshop session geared for nonprofits.  I love taking a cross disciplinary perspective - education, nonprofit, and corporate.   I got some good feedback and will post some reflections in a bit.   But how about using Twitter as a feedback tool?

Millie Garfield and Jonny Goldstein
Photo by Steve Garfield

I bumped into Millie Garfield who shared some reflections about her "virtual" blogging friends.  It was also great to see John Wall  a second time this month!



Photo by Jonny Goldstein

That's Jonny Goldstein and Steve Garfield imitating art.  Jonny did a session on live streaming talk shows by doing a talk show.  Steve was presenting at the same time I was, but I heard raves about his session from other people.

Photos by CC Chapman

I attended two sessions with Christopher Penn- one on search engine optimization or how to make google love you with Julien Smith.  Some things I learned:

• Twitter is loved by google - updated rapidly
• Not a bad idea to put a link in your twitter stream
• Blog everyday - put links in your favorite key words and include in the title
• Keywords in your profiles in your social networking site, like flickr
• Website grader - useful tool to search trends.
• In your title, include keywords
• Yahoo is better to count links to your stuff than google
• SEO in firefox - extension lets you dig into your search results and tells you who your're doing
• Google AdWords - find good volume but not high price
• trends.google.com  - relative strength of a term over time
• Naming of your blog or podcast - make it generic to your field
• Register your domain name for ten years straight.
• Indicator of trust to show that you will be there for a while is a good thing.
• Register an exact match domain name - which is the exact phrase people type into a search engine to find you.  Google looks at it and thinks its value.
• Gogle trends - use it to determine what people are searching on.
• Seo campaigns - 90 days in advance of your busiest season

I was torn, I wanted to attend John Federico's session on downloadable metrics, but ended up at another session.   Here's the slides.

Some notes from Christopher Penn's session strategy:  He presented a marketing funnel and goals in different profiles. Great way to think about all this:  visitors, listeners, subscribers, and evangelists.  He gave lots of strategy advice and tips for each segment.

There were definitely a lot more women at Podcamp 2 and here's a quick roundup:

Jane Quigley is a sharp and smart marketer and savvy about all things social media.  I love her writing about social media trends.  She tagged me for media snackers meme that is traveling through the blogosphere.  She introduced me to a utterz, a micro audio blogging tool.

Connie Reece is another social media maven and writes a terrific blog on social media.    I met her through Jane.
Joyce Bettencourt is a talented print and digital designer who also is doing some incredible work in Second Life.

Millie Garfield (who I've had the pleasure of meeting at BlogHer) and I had a great talk about our "virtual blogging" friends.

Laura Athavale Fitton is a presentation coach and consultant.  She did an excellent session on presenting skills.

Casey McKinnon (with Rudy Jahchan) were at podcamp dressed in Halloween costumes.   Casey posed for a photo.
Melanie Van Orden is the Executive Director of Podcasters Against Genocide.  We had lunch together and I got know more about her, including the fact that she is also does online marketing for musicians.

Michelle Wolverton's card says "How can I help you save hours in your day?"  She works as a virtual personal assistant.  She was there because she helped with a lot of the organizational and logistical tasks to pull off podcamp.  Well done Michelle!

Elizabeth Dunn works for the Arts Foundation of Cape Cod, but she is also a nonprofit technology blogger. I love getting a chance to meet bloggers I've been following!

Sandy Kalik from Topaz Partners

I met a lot of people at the parties and in the hallways, including:

Eric Skiff
Thanks for the tips on tumblr

Ron Ploof

Scott Monty (Hmm great title - Relationship Director and Consiglieri)

Tommy Vallier (And, yes you can still contribute to the Cambodian college campaign!)

Jesse Chenard

David Meerman Scott (damn his session was the same as mind ..)

Dan York

JC Bouvier

Now, I'm worried I left someone out .. if I did, let me know.   Not a media snack ...

Following the Social Media Conversation for PR - Bryan Person and Doug Haslam

In the presentation for this session, Doug Haslam used a screencapture of this blog post as an example of how a pr person can leave a comment to pitch a story on their client's behalf.   (He also mentioned that I had not blogged it.)  Hmm ... this is an interesting way to pitch a story -- use of a screencapture from a blogger who is sitting in the audience and pitch them in front of the group.)

Here's the information he sent me last week:

I'm forwarding an excerpt from a survey form one of my clients, Prospero Technologies (www.prospero.com), a provider of social media platforms for major brands (I mentioned them in a comment on your blog recently). There is not a focus on non-profits, but I thought you might find some bits of relevance to your audience.

Some bits from the survey:

• 88% of respondents plan to increase social media spending next year (no big surprise perhaps, but a commanding number)
• 59 percent of respondents reported that social media performance in 2007 met or exceeded their marketing objectives
• 35 percent reported positive ROI and 41 percent said that ROI was “unknown.”
• Comparing current tools in use or consideration to expectations for 2008, the following show an expected increase in interest in: Podcasts, Video blogs, Mobile video/image/text submission, Citizen Journalism, Micro-Blogging, and Virtual Worlds.

The emphasis of the session was on how to find conversations online and respond to them.    I like how Bryan and Doug framed using several social media tools (google alerts, tags, and rss) to find conversations.  They also gave some great examples of the art of commenting (although I was a little embarrassed to see my blog on the screen and forgot to jot down notes - but the gist of what they were saying reminded me of Cool Cat Teacher Blog's "How To Comment Like a King and Queen."   

The room was filled with PR types - mostly doing pr on the corporate side - so the issues of whether or not the agency can speak on the corp's behalf on a blog.    Also, the whole issue of "blogging policies" -- particularly an employee's personal blog.  One person who was a former HR rep suggested that the best blogging policies were those written by the employees.  A person next me started to laugh and asked him why.  He said "We just let our employees blog." 

 

A Social Media Measurement Nonprofit Guinea Pig: Thanks Tim! Please add your thoughts!

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I'm doing a workshop on Social Media Metrics, Measurement, and ROI at PodCamp Boston tomorrow.  This is work in progress. I'll be doing a presentation on a panel at the Museum Computer Network Conference in two weeks on this topic and in early 2008 for the Legal Services Corporation.   I still feel like I haven't totally wrapped my brain around all this.

When I blogged my preliminary thoughts and set up a wikispace, I was seeking a specific nonprofit example to make it more real.  Tim Davies from the UK volunteered to be the guinea pig and test the thinking process (a logic model of sorts) for his newly launched web project that incorporates social media strategies. 

I'm hoping that some of us can have a conversation about what Tim has done or perhaps try to apply to their own social media project.  But, here are a few comments:

• Kudos to you for setting clear goals and starting off with measurement from the beginning.
• You've done a terrific job in identifying benefits(outcomes) and some metrics - you might want to consider paring them down even further.   What data matters most?  You're almost there.
• I'd like to see how you are going to specifically look at success/change and metrics for your blog.  You talk about aggregating content, but what about comments/conversation on the blog? 
• I like how you are weaving together both number data and qualitative data and how you plan to collect stories.  I think that's essential and it is a big point I'm making the presentation above.

Tim also wrote a reflection and it is enormously helpful.   

• I think your pyramid approach is spot on.  You want to focus on the goals and outcomes (benefits) first - not the metrics.
• The definitions for metrics are "attributes that are important to understand" and measurement is the process of collecting data to determine a result.   Maybe another way to think about it is measurement as data collection, but focused data collection.  You only collect what you need to answer the question - have reached our result or intended outcome/benefit.
• Good point on the "when to take measurement" - I'd put that in the "measurement" section and I would look at trend data - and not get too granular -- after all you don't have to spend all your time collecting data and if you collect too much it will make the analysis piece time consuming.  And, it will make your brain hurt!

You should read two articles that will help inform your thinking.  Look at this one by Jeremiah Owyang, "From the Boardroom to the Drawing Room."   And then go read Charlene Li's ROI of Blogging.  See her chart specifically.  It seems like your next step -- after you launch - is to do the ROI computation.   Translates your results in a value, if you can and compute the ROI.   Her example is a marketing example, of course, and business oriented.  So it may get totally lost in translation to the nonprofit side of things.

Any other guinea pigs out there that want to try this model?

Podcamp Session on Social Media Metrics: Thank You Jeremiah

Flickr Photo by whatchamakallit

UPDATE:  The presentation slides and wikispace is here.

I'm doing a session at Boston podcamp called the Social Media Metrics/ROI Game.   I'm slightly out of my comfort zone here because I've only been following this topic closely for a short time, although I have co-authored a guide for nonprofits on technology evaluation and ROI.  I also don't want to get too deep into geeky measurement crap.  And, above all, the session needs to be a conversation about Social Media, not a lecture.

So when I heard that one of the leading subject matter experts on social media metrics - Jeremiah Owyang - was the guest of honor at a local social media networking event, I decided to go.  And, the networking was good, but the best part was the opportunity to ask Jeremiah a few clarifying questions to his face!  Thank you!

There is a lot of discussion on the topic on web strategy blogs and from social media strategy gurus like Owyang.  There's also a lot of talk in the nonprofit blog space prompted by a recent Netsquared ThinkTank and some great thinking on the topic, particularly by Wendy Harmon of the Red Cross, mostly focused on ROI.   I'm looking to blend different perspectives and have a workshop session that can speak to nonprofits and grassroots media makers.  Also, most of the audiences I'll be talking to are not web analytics geeks either, so will need a basic and condensed overview too.

  So, here's the session description:

Social Media Metrics/ROI Game

Standardized metrics for measuring the ROI of social media strategies are a moving target.  Many are discovering that traditional web analytics and metrics (like page view) are not appropriate.  The current conversation is about the need for new metrics and methods for objective measurement.   What metric(s) you select depends on your strategy map, tool selection, and context.   Different metrics matter for different social media makers for different reasons. This session will use a training game as a conversation starter for participants to begin to identify the most important metric mapped with strategy. The session will provide a brief summary of the recent thinking on this topic by thought leaders in the field, but mostly provide an opportunity for small group discussion and sharing about current practices on this important topic.

Session Learning Goals

• To understand why social media metrics are different from traditional web metrics
• A snapshot of current and evolving thinking about social media metrics on the social web
• To provide a simple framework for thinking about how to apply social media metrics to improve your marketing strategy and begin to measure ROI
• A conversation starter about social media metrics with your fellow social media maker peers here in the room and (hopefully) to be continued on the social web.

When standard metrics are discussed, people easily fall into the "mine is bigger or better than yours"  comparisons or "numbers data out of context thinking."   Our brains naturally migrate to scoreboards, report cards, and stock market returns   For nonprofits, it isn't about making money.  The focus is on:  improving the effectiveness of the marketing strategy or content,  not wasting limited resources, and having more people to take action (push for cause, donate money, or whatever). 

I'm going to give a very brief overview (15-20 minutes at most) that will serve as a conversation starter for small group work.    Here's a brain dump of some key points.  I was very grateful for Jeremiah's assistance in thinking about the social media metrics.

• Many people are coming up with their take on how to provide useful metrics and measurements on the effects of social media for a nonprofit organization or individual social media maker as well as the conversation in the corporate sector. But define some terms first:   
  

• Measurement is the process of determining the result of a strategy (source: J. Owyang)
• Metrics are the attributes or factors that are important to understand (source: J.Owyang)
• Standardized Metrics are those attributes that an industry might use to compare different organizations, media outlets, etc. (Think Nielsen Ratings).
  
• Mapping is the process of developing a map of all things you are doing to generate conversation, sharing, and collaboration as a social media maker. (source: Chris Brogan)
• ROI (Return on Investment) determines whether the cost of your marketing investment paid off.  Should we be spending our time or money on this social media strategy?  Traditionally, this looks at dollars out and dollars in. It may also look at outcomes or reaching goals.
  

• Three assumptions:

• What is more important how.  We should pay attention to the social media standardized metrics discussion and translate it into useful ways to apply it to nonprofits and grassroots media - but not get bogged down in geeky measurement.

• It's Hard To Put A Dollar Amount On Priceless. (Need to track down the cost of the most expensive Van Gogh)  It can be difficult to put a dollar value to intangibles in social media.  Think about that Master Card commercial as illustrated here.

• Data is not like Martha Stewart - it is far from perfect.   Don't get distracted by the data you may or may not have, but look at more than one source of data (both quantitative and qualitative), look at trends and always link information to decision-making. (We're not going to debate:
  Google Reader Stats Are Bullshit  - but if you want some tips on how to do that, see Avinash Kaushik's Convert Data Skeptics)
  

• A Two-Minute History of Web Metrics:   Tim Berners-Lee, a long time ago, invented the world wide web.  Life was good.  You typed in a URL and a file with text and links (and later pictures and video) would be delivered.  Then some smart human created server logs and it was like  Prometheus bringing fire to marketers.  The log files captured lots of data that gave us a lot "measurable" information about what people were doing on web sites.    As web sites got bigger, their log files got bigger and even smarter humans created analytics software that could generate cool reports based on standard metrics like page views, unique visitors, referring sites, pages visited, and time on site,  etc  (Source: Avinash Kaushik's "Web Analytics An Hour A Day")

• We have a history and culture and expectation for objective web site measurement.   Let's imagine walking into and out of  a supermarket. If you didn't purchase anything, no one would know you're there.  If you purchased something, say laundry detergents, then they would know a bit more about you.  Visiting a web site is radically different if you look at from view of Web data collection.  The web site logs know what aisles you walked down, in what order, how long you stayed in each aisle, what detergents you took off the shelf and put back on, how many times your visited before, how you were referred to the store in the first, and so forth. (Source: Avinash Kaushik's "Web Analytics An Hour A Day")

• Let's define some of these "traditional" and long standing metrics:

Basics: Visits, Visitors, Page Views, Visitor Info
Engagement: Time on Site, Bounce Rate
Traffic:  Referrers, Entry/Exit Pages, Google Search Terms
Content:  Click analysis, goal conversions, funnel analysis

• So, why can't we simply use existing metrics and analytics software and call it day?

• The Web is changing!  The emphasis is on collaboration, sharing, and conversation.  (If there are podcasters in the room, you know that already!)  Social media has rocked the world of web analytics and metrics!

• In December, 2006, Steve Rubel predicted that the Page View is Dead!

"The page view has served us well. It has established a universal way to measure web sites. However, the metric is about to become a moot point. The page view does not offer a suitable way to measure the next generation of web sites. These sites will be built with Ajax, Flash and other interactive technologies that allow the user to conduct affairs all within a single web page - like Gmail or the Google Reader. This eliminates the need to click from one page to another. The widgetization of the web will only accelerate this."

• Question:  Why does a Star Fish Have Five Rays? (Answer: I don't know).  So, what the heck does a Star Fish have to do with Social Media Metrics?  (Answer: I still don't know, but I saw it on Scoble's white board)  He describes five social media metrics and suggested they be combined in some way for a standardized measure. 
  

• I found the categories useful to thinking about it, but most valuable I asked Jeremiah some specific questions about how to put these  metrics in a more holistic context -- outcomes, measures, strategy.  The categories were audience, engagement, loyalty,  influence, and action. (What's interesting is the acronym aelia stands for Jerusalem) 

Audience:  Who is coming? Demographics  How many people visit the site? (Raw numbers aren't as important as trends)  Unique Visitors

Engagement= Interaction + Attention

How many people comment on posts? What is your post to comment ratio?  What do they click on? How long do they stay? 

I used some metrics and measurement techniques suggested by Avinash Kaushik to look at the commenting.   I also think quality of the conversation or shape of it is important.  Are you really getting off your soap box?

Loyalty:  How many subscribers does your podcast or blog have? What is the trend?  Going up and to the right? 

Dave Winer says why rss subscriber numbers alone don't matter and Kaushik has some advice on measuring this 

Influence/Authority:  Scoble defines this as % of posts that show up on Techmeme, Digg, my Link Blog, Slashdot, StumbleUpon, etc.  Avinash suggested Technorati.  This is hard to pin down.  Does the number of embeds fit in here? 

Intent/Action:  What is the most important goal or outcome of your organization, work, or business?  What is your conversion rate for getting me to sign up, volunteer, donate, purchase an item, etc leading towards that goal?  Owyang says that qualitative information, anecdotes are very important. 

• This naturally leads us to Chris Brogan's thoughts on the ROI and Measuring Social Media
  

There is a symbiotic relationship between strategy and metrics.  Chris talks about the importance of mapping your social media strategy and identifying a key metric or two for each strategy that tells you whether you've been successful.   He gives a great list of what goes into the map

• List of the most likely places a human will encounter the media I produce.
• Methods for listening to conversations off-blog and outside my media.
• Touch Points along the value chain and how my media reaches each one.
• Path back to a central data capture for reporting and strategy monitoring.
• Pinpoints to corrective measures taken from initial strategy path to current efforts.

• How do we put this all together?  Let's look at three different ways to think about your the analytics data:

Therapy:  You look at your site meter or views in real time.  Yes, people are listening.  They like me, they hate me - ah darn, just wasted three hours ...

Detective Work:  What's going on here? Why are the comments higher on one blog post or podcast and lower or another?   What can we adjust?  This can be helpful for continuous improvement, but it is time consuming and may not be effective.

Answers Business Questions Related To Goals:  (examples)

• Here's a simple framework for thinking through these.  A logic model. (I need some concrete examples - help!)

• Goal:  What is your most important organizational, business, program, or project goal? 
• Outcomes: What changes? What happens?  What would success look like to you?
• Metrics:  What are the attributes or evidence you will measure?
• Measurement:  How will you measure?  What data?  What source?
• Map:  What social media strategies will you use to reach your goals? A whole other workshop

At this point will want to do a small group where one person is the client and the others will ask these questions, focusing on the first three. Each group will have a cheat sheet with the questions one side and the metrics/definitions on the other.

Here's what I need:

Anyone willing to go through the framework above and share an example from real life or make one up so it isn't all concept? 
What isn't clear or could be simplified?
Am I missing anything?

Recent Posts from Different Perspectives on the Topic:  Need To Explore

ROI of Blogging/Social Media

Charlene Li, ROI of Blogging, January, 2007
Jeremiah Owyang, ROI of Blogging, Intangible
Jeremiah Owyang, From the Drawing Room to the Board Room

Avinash Kaushik, Tips for Measuring the Success of Your Blog
Jeremiah Owyang  Social Media Measurement category
Jeremiah Owyang Factiva Social Media Roundtable Answers What We Should Measure
Stow Boyd, Conversation Index

KM/Informal Learning/Business Perspective

Jay Cross, ROI of Informal Learning
Dennis Howlett, ROI is so Business 1.0 Not
Altul Rai, Measurement of Business Processes
Elsua, Making the Business Case for ROI
Stephen Downes, Can't Count Friends or Count on Them
Greg Verdino, Key Takeaway from Forrester

Nonprofit Examples/Thinking

Wendy Harmon on ROI (Diagram)
Joitske H., ROI for Development Orgs
Froggy Loop Social media ROI Calculator

Metrics

Comparison of Old/New Web Metrics
Facebook Metrics - ROI of Friendship - Dave McClure's ARRGH Model

Relationship Measurement was defined by Jim and Laurie Grunig and Linda Hon in this paper..
Forrester has a new "engagement index" as does Eric Peterson

Are you going to PodCamp Boston? Cool contest with Event Brite

PodCamp is a FREE BarCamp-style community UnConference for podcasters and listeners, bloggers and readers, and anyone interested in New Media.  I was lucky enough to participate in the first one, held for the first time from September 8-10 in Boston, Massachusetts.  I learned so much and the networking was awesome.  I don't even podcast!   

The event is now spreading across the world, but if you happen to be in Boston or visiting in October 26-28th, you absolutely must go if you're interested in New Media.   Here's the link to the registration for PodCamp - don't sign up unless you actually plan on attending.

 Chris Penn one of the founders just let us know that they're running a contest.   If you follow that link above, it is a customizable URL that lets event planners track which affiliates bring in the most clicks and "ticket sales" - well it's free, so sign ups.

They are offering the affiliate who brings the most people to PodCamp Boston a Sanyo VPC-CG65 handheld video camera (rough market value: $350). This little baby is what PodCamp Co-Founder Christopher Penn uses to take videos - it shoots with the advanced AVC/H.264 codec and can cram 75 minutes of high quality video onto a single 1 GB SD card. See an example here.

I want one!  Even if I don't win the camera, it doesn't matter because this is an awesome event you shouldn't miss and I'd say that anyway even if there wasn't a chance to win a video camera!

What is your 15SecondPitch? An Interview with Laura Allen

Photo courtesy of Laura Allen

Laura Allen is the co-founder 15SecondPitch, a company that help people to market themselves in 15 seconds on the phone, email, face-to-face, and on business cards.  I met Laura at Boston Podcamp very briefly and grabbed her card so I could catch up with her for an interview for Blogher.

1. Why did you launch your company?

After 9/11/01 in New York, the economy was truly dismal. For the first time in a long time, I was concerned about finding work. What’s worse, everyone I knew was calling me and asking me to connect them to a job. I did not know of any jobs or anyone hiring. I started to get scared. I was so grateful just to be alive, but also fearful of the future. Jim and I decided that we needed to come up with an easy way to market ourselves and that we needed to share that idea with others because we knew the economy was going to be very rough for an extended period of time. Luckily, people immediately loved the idea of the 15SecondPitch and people started to buy our business cards with their pitches printed on them right away.

What we did not know at the time was that people would have a lot of trouble writing their 15SecondPitch, so that became an opportunity for me to offer my marketing/writing/shameless self-promotion expertise to help them decide what they wanted to pitch and how to say it in a way that was authentic for them.

2. What is this 15 second pitch anyway?

The 15SecondPitch is a concise, clever and compelling introduction of who you are, what you do, why you are the best at it and your call to action. The best part of the 15SecondPitch is that it can be delivered in just 15 seconds. The idea of the 15SecondPitch is also a nod to Andy Warhol. Warhol said, “In the future, everyone will be famous for 15 Minutes” and I thought that was a very profound idea. Now, we live in an A.D.D. society, so my quote is, “Everyone can be famous for 15Seconds—everyday.” I think that our current technology (cell phones, ipods, blogs, podcasts, blackberries, etc.) is absolutely amazing and beyond anything I could have imagined growing up. The only downside is that people don’t have a lot of time to hear about who you are and what you are doing. You need to cut through everything else that’s vying for their attention at that moment and deliver a VERY memorable pitch!

3. Why do I need one? Is there research that backs it up?

15SecondPitch just completed an informal survey of over 2,000 professionals. We found that nearly 70% of professionals have trouble pitching themselves. We also found that 1/3 of the respondents hated going to networking events and also did not have business cards that reflect their unique talents. Here’s a link to the survey findings.
 

Guy Kawasaki makes a BIG point about how people should learn how to pitch in his blog entry called “Ten Things to Learn This School Year.” Even if you are not in school, I feel learning to pitch is one of the most important things to know if you want to promote yourself.

4. Why would a nonprofit organization need one?

Non-profit organizations are in desperate need of a great 15SecondPitch! There are so many amazing  non-profits out there. How do you as a progressive, compassionate person decide which causes to donate money to? How do you decide which organizations to volunteer your time with?

Whenever I donate my time or money to an organization, it is usually because a someone I meet is PASSIONATE about this organization. How do I know they are passionate? They talk my ear off about all of the great programs and initiatives the non-profit has going on! And this all starts with a conversation. Usually they grab my attention by talking about the mission of the non-profit and then I get excited and want to be a part of it too! If everyone who was very passionate about a given cause took the time to create a simple 15SecondPitch, I’d bet that they’d all raise a lot more awareness and donations. It’s fast, easy and free to create a 15SecondPitch and display it on our website for our 1500+ members to see, so I can’t see why anyone would NOT want to do it.

I’ve presented my 15SecondPitch workshop at: Streetwise Partners  and the National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship.  This year I’ll also be presenting for: StepUpWomen’s Network and New York Opportunity Network

One of the reasons why I like to work with people is because there have been times when I could not find work and it was a very scary time for me. I like to work with organizations who help people get the training they need that they might not be able to get elsewhere. The 15SecondPitch helps people feel more confident about who they are and the skills they have to offer to the world.

5.  Tell me a story about how the 15second pitch has transformed one
of your clients.

This is the best part of my “job”. I love working with people and helping them come up with a great pitch that can really transform their lives! One of my clients is a singer/songwriter who emailed me a few days before she had to go to a major music conference. She knew that she did not have a good pitch and that she was not promoting herself as well as she could be. We sat down at a local Starbuck’s and we spent 90 minutes working on her pitch. I could tell you the whole story, but I feel that the pitch speaks for itself!

Here’s Mara’s pitch:

My name is Mara Sanchez and I am a Singer/Songwriter specializing in creating songs in 3 different languages. I write 'slammin' music and lyrics in the Pop, Latin, Brazilian and Jazz genres. I am great at what I do because I have toured and performed in Europe and Japan and have shared the spotlight with Stevie Wonder. I also sing in three different languages (Spanish, English and Portuguese) Right now I am recording a new CD of original Latin Pop songs and looking to tour internationally.

You can see her picture and her pitch on our website here

Mara had a limited budget, so she could not just go out and hire the people that she needed to help her make a name for herself. As a result of her new pitch, she found a music producer and a lawyer who was willing to work pro-bono. This is all because they believed in her talant because she was confident and knew how to marketing herself using her new pitch. Hopefully, Mara will become a household name in the next few years.

6. Aside from having a 15 second pitch up my sleeve, what other networking
advice would you suggest? Blogs to read?

I would suggest that women focus on creating their own networking groups. Start with one person that you like, add two more, then another and so on. I think that networking events are good, however, to grow your own circle of friends organically over time will always yield better and more consistent results.

I go to many networking events here in NYC every week and my goal is always to meet one or two interesting people that I’d like to get to know better. And if I focus on that, I’m never disappointed. I’d also recommend that everyone learn a concept that I created called the “Third Party Pitch.” What this means is that I will invite a friend whom I respect and admire to go to a networking event with me. I know what this person does and I believe in their work. Instead of just focusing on pitching myself all evening, I spend a lot of time promoting my friend. For example, if I meet someone who works at an entertainment company, I might talk about Leslie and her new film. If I meet someone in the music industry, I’ll mention Mara. It’s much easier for me and for most people I know to promote their friends and the vendors they work with. In fact, 90% of my business comes from word of mouth. People work with me and then they recommend me to their friends. This is the most effective type of marketing there is.

However, I make it easier for them to market me, by teaching them my 15SecondPitch and giving them a big stack of my business cards to give out when they have the opportunity to do so. Of course I do the same for them, whenever I can.

Some of my current blog favorites are:

Elana Centor
Wonder Branding
Learned on Women
Lifehack.org
Chris Brogan

The Knitting Podcaster

Guido Stein, "It's a Purl Man" - he told me that he knits during meetings.  He told me that it helps him listen better.  I didn't believe him, but it is true.

Points of Entry into Podcasting for Nonprofits

David Berlind captured in my flickr photos

I attended a session at podcamp called Gear Talk by David Berlind.  He kindly posted some pointers to the details about the equipment he is using on his ZDnet blog.  This represents the high-end, professional equipment.  As David acknowledged to the audience before launching into a audio geek show and tell session,  "Your equipment depends on your needs.  In my work, I have 20 minutes to interview Bill Gates and I need my equipment to work."   

It is important to keep in mind that there are different levels of equipment investment , learning time, skills requirement, and planning time required.   There are trade-offs to different approaches in terms of sound quality to keep in mind.   

Easy and Cheap

You can get going with podcasting pretty easily and cheaply using a tool like hipcast and your cellphone as Steve Garfield.  There is a lower point of entry - no editing, no need to know any audio editing programs, and immediate publishing.  And, while the sound and visual look may not be polished, one could perfect their skills at guerrila podcasting/videocasting so the quality didn't detract from the content.  I think this is a good way to just start to explore the medium and this genre of podcasting/videocasting without lots of money or time. 

I think it is a fabulous technique for capturing and sharing knowledge from conferences and other nonprofit gatherings as I noted here. 

Middle of the Road

I attended a session called Podcasting 101 by John of the Mshow  (my notes here) He outlined a middle of the road approach in terms of time, skill, and equipment investment.  This is probably what nonprofit organizations who want to go beyond the limitations of the cheap and easy approach might do.    As John pointed out in his talk, content is the most important - which can be a barrier. 

Recently on the N-TEN Discuss list, someone asked about microphones for podcasting.  There was lots of good advice and specific recommendations (see my summary here.)  One of the people who posted was very knowledgable --so I emailed them to inquire if their nonprofit had done podcasting.

They answered, "We actually do not podcast here. Folks were all excited about it for a while, but I kept having to ask what we would actually be podcasting about and no one seemed to have an answer. I find that to be the case with a lot of new technologies. Everybody wants to do it, but they do not have a reason to. I think descriptions of our work really need a visual component to be captivating."

This observation further reinforces the point made by Leesa Barnes during her session "Planning A Killer Podcast," about analyzing your content, audience, image, and promotional strategy prior to launching a podcast show.   I keep thinking about the podcast listener survey she conducted and how it makes a compelling case for some nonprofits to consider podcasting as part of their mix. 

All in all, podcamp was a valuable source of knowledge exchange.  Also, if we want to see a more balance female/male ratio of podcast gatherings, more women need to show up.  And, since this is an unconference format, all we need to do is add ourselves to the agenda.  Damn, next year I will.  

Chris Brogan - New Media School

Chris mentioned this fabulous screencast about how to technorati ego surf - check it out.

Steve Garfield - Cell Phone Podcast Demo

Here's Steve doing the cell phone podcast using hipcast. You listen to the actual podcast here.

Kevin Kennedy-Spaien

Kevin Kennedy-Spaien
Originally uploaded by cambodia4kidsorg.

I attempted to do a quick podcast interview using my treo with Kevin at podcamp.  But, darn - lost both files through stupidity! Lesson learned - don't try to learn new skills when you are exhausted from staying up all night from rebuilding your crashed computer!  Thank god Kevin taped a back-up version on his recorder!

Leesa Barnes Interview

My podcast interview with Leesa Barnes after her Plan A Killer Podcast Session.  We talked about the podcast audience research, the points in her session, and why more women should podcast.

Steve Garfield Videocast Demo

Now Steve is uploading the video to hipcast.

Leesa Barnes: How To Plan A Killer Podcast

Leesa Barnes,  Cubicledivas.com
Podonomics

Leesa Barnes drove all the way from Toronto to Boston to attend Podcamp, basically driving all night! She was one of the few women presenting too and later during a brief podcast interview I did with her, we discussed that issue.  Her session, "Plan a Killer Podcast" was fantastic!  I was impressed that at 3:00 p.m. in the afternoon after driving all night, she could be so on!  It has also made me realize that I need to do a lot more planning before jumping down the rabbit hole of podcasting.

Here's a few of my notes:

Why bother planning?  You need to know who is listening!  If you don't plan, you won't be able to measure your success or improve. You won't know who your audience is or how to reach them. You won't be able to be consistent.

What type of planning do you do for your podcasts?

* Guida Stein, "It's a Purl, Man" shared that he uses an online wiki (private) with shows listed.   He has a template and starts filling in the shows.  It's online and easy to use. He plans about six shows in advance.

* Another person does an analyzes keyword searches on nichebot and then googles the keywords to see the numbers.  Then plans shows based on those topics.

* Another person looks at their blog or Web stats and sees what key words people were searching on that lead visitors to their site.

* Another person uses Podzinger to integrate clips related to topics he is planning a show on.

Leesa shared some statistics from the Canadian Podcast Listener Survey that did.

* Podcast listeners are older than we think.  That it is just young people is a myth.  The largest group was the 35-44 age group.

* 69% want original content

Her survey matches all the results from many other surveys done elsewhere on the podcast audience.

What are the components of planning?

Triad of planning

Planning your promotional strategy - How to guide people to dialogue with you in your podcast
Image - what people will see when they come to your podcast
Content - Even if your sounds like crap, if you content is good - you'll be successful

Promotion

Some suggestions from the podcasters in the room:
-Promos with other podcasters
-Online community - learn the community, be a part of the community, mention the podcast if it is value added community.
-Use other podcasters
-Who can have me on their podcast as a guest
-Search engine optimization skills
-Write a piece for another podcaster that makes sense for your content - a value added piece
-Be a "comment whore"

Need to be listed in the main directories:

itunes
podcasteralley.com
podcast.net
podnova.com
odeo.com
podcasts.yahoo.com

(Note:  She'd like a developer to create script where you could submit to all these directories in one click version going to each one seperately because it is very time consuming.)

She recommended Jason Van Orden's book, "Promoting Your Podcast" (I bought a copy and it is well worth the $16)

Image

What people see when they stumble across your podcast.  Make it attractive enough for the listener to fall in love with your podcasts.

What things attract you to subscribe?

* Person's personality
* Podcast cover
* Description
* Show name
* Art that shows up alongside your podcast
* Page where you podcast sits  - design -- not a simple flash player (wordpress has a plugin called podpress)

Content

* passion and purpose
* who do you want to listen to your podcast
* competition
* consistency
* be you, everyone else is taken - original
* personality of the host
* audio quality

She ends with ...If you plan your podcast, your podcast will reflect your plan.

My First Podcast With Steve Garfield

After Steve's session, I decided to do my first podcast using my Treo and hipcast.  So, here it is.  I like Steve's Julia Child imitation!

Some links:

Steve's blog: Offonatangent

Steve's Learn All About Videoblogging

Reflections:

1.  Pre-program the hipcast number, a pause, and your hipcast usercode into your phone. (I need figure out what symbol is pause on cell phone.)
2.  Remember it's hit pound key when done recording and listen to the options
3.  Pretend the phone is a mic, not a phone
4.  Later in the afternoon, I went to a session called "Interviewing Techniques" and I did too much of a set up to the first question.  You need to get it over right to your interviewee.
5.  The sound quality is sounds a little flat. I wonder if there is a way to jack something into the treo to improve the sound quality.
6.  This approach is good to start learning your craft and for on-the-go, really short interviews.

Technorati Tags: podcamp

Interview Techniques

Mark Blevis -  www.electricsky.net
Larry Lawfer - www.yourstorys.com (he knows it is spelled wrong because the correct spelling goes to a porno site)

UPDATE:

I am wondering if you could change your opening line about YourStorys. It is no longer a porn site as it was for years. It is now a legit site. I guess I will have to change my story now. YourStories was just not available when I registered this domain back in 2000-2001.

A funny story about this is that I was headed back to my high school reunion and was speaking to a friend of mine who I hadn't been connected to in some thousand years. His mother was a very influential english teacher of mine and I loved her. I sent Dick my link to show him what I was up to. The next day I got an email from his mother, I didn't know she was still alive. Dick had sent his mother the link and she looked at the site. Her subject line was, "You're up to your old tricks, I see". She busted me on the misspelling.

She then went on to give me some solid writing recommendations. I love her and am now still in touch, she is and was a huge influence in my life.

I got lost trying to find the room and arrived late.  I missed part of this session which had advice I desparately need after listening to my first couple of podcasts. 

Here's my notes:

Ask a question that they don't expect
Share your questions, after editing them, with the person you will interview
Get feedback and then respond to that feedback.
Never leave them feeling they are not listened to
This preps them and allows them to provide you more or better information

Set expectations

We're going to spend 30 minutes and that's it.  Inform them of the process.  Stick to your plan.
Establish rapport through contact.  Show your enthusiasm to subject and person.
Let them know how long you will need them.  Stick to schedule.

How do you explain the editing process to your guests?

There's a range of approaches:

-Some let the person hear the edited interview before it is published and others don't
-During the interview, they will let a person take a second chance if it they trip on their words
-"If they go on a tangent, I will stop them and summarize it.  Then I will ask them to say it and challenge it."
-Give them feedback.  If they give you a great answer, tell them.  If they don't give you a good answer, ask the question again in a different way.

Do you edit the ums and ahs?

"I don't remove the ums because they are part of natural speech - unless they are frequent and loud - I will pick off every second one.  I don't edit sections of their answer unless it is a far off tangent."

If I edit ums, I don't edit it out of the first few seconds of the interview, but leave them in.  Once people hear the interview and believe the person was an expert.

Yourstorys edits out the ums and ahs.

Important point: Open up the show with the guest and end with the guest. 

Plan the set up in advance when there is a question that needs to be asked.  All I care about is the question.

What interview shows do you like?

Terry Gross
Listen to the ones you like and don't like.  Get a full range.
Beyond Science Show - good interviewer.

What happens if your reach a fork in the road?

Your subject may stray down a new path, don't stop them if it is interesting
If they stumble, ask them the question again in a new way.  If they say something you would like to have them say another way suggest an alternative.

I'm hoping they will post their slides.

Podcasting 101 Live Blogging from Boston Podcamp

The next session I attended was Podcasting 101 by John Walker of  themshow.com
He gave us an overview of the process, equipment, and skills you need, answering questions along the way.  His approach is definitely a few pegs of up from entry level and if you invest in the tools, software, and services it will run about $500-1,000.   This information is probably for someone who is burning serious about podcasting or after you've experimented with some of the techniques that Steve Garfield shared.  (In the afternoon, I sat in a session called "Gear Talk" by David Berlind who showed professional level equipment which is an even larger investment.)

There were about 30 people in the room, only about 5 were women.

His slides will be posted on the Podcamp wiki -- so look for them.

1.  Content is first!

Gather your ideas
Create a script - don't go free form or you might end up with a lot of ums and ahs.

General public is used to radio and clean stuff.

Original research or first-hand experience or something that is uniquely you as a topic.

2.  Record

Two families of mics
Dynamic mic - $80 SHURE SM57 or 58is top of the line- any $20 USB mic

Castblaster - can que up your audio files and sound effects - DJ tool.  SONY acid - express version only costs about $20.
Garageban is king for Mac.  PC - audacity for editing and record.
If you want to spend money, SONY has tools like soundforge.

3. Mobile Gear:
iriver 770- internal memory recorder.  Two headphone jacks. Dual jacks.  Podcaster's choice.  Don't buy the current Iriver.  Need a pre-amp. $50-60 - overstock.com has them.  Need to use dynamic mic. 

Marantz - Field reporter's choice.  PMD660.   Adjust the audio signal and keeps the quality high.  Cost about $500.

Err on the side of too soft - you can correct it.  If it is too loud, you get a fry noise and you can't get rid of it.   Audacity or goldwave can help you get a soft audio louder. 

Use the telephone line with a digital device - telos one - costs money.
SKYPE recording software -  recorder and skype - competition for sound card and system resources.  He has had trouble with it so he doesn't use it.

4. Editing
Need to clean it up, make the sound sound great.
Soundsoap - post-producton - does noise reduction.  Program costs about $90.   Can do this with audacity but you need some technical skills and it doesn't do a good job.

General rule - fix the problem upstream. Less work to do it.  Have your chain be as clean as possible.

Tag file - append text information to the file.  You can do that within Itunes.  Drag the file into Itunes - and fill out the form and check podcast on format.   Important for marketing.  When it gets on a portable player, folks won't be able to find your show on their ipod.   Have a date or show number on the title first is a best practice.

5.  Posting and Distribution

Liberated syndication.
Now get it on the web.  Biggest challenge is bandwidth.  If your podcast becomes popular, you end up spending money.   Liberated sync - starting package if $5 per month.

Feeds - Important for distribution to pick up podcasts via Itunes and orther feedreaders.    This is the call of action - get people to subscribe to your feed.  Listeners that you have locked in.  You need this.   Third-party services will create your feed for you.  The problem is that you don't own your feed.  The most important thing is to own your feed.   Directory where you homepage is -- own your feed.  If you're going to manage your feed yourself - may be reason to pay $5 per month.  Libsync monitors what Itunes needs and fixes the feeds.  Otherwise, you'd have to do this.

Do you have to use Lib Syn blog software?  No, you can use it as a host.

Technorati Tags: podcamp

Live Blogging Podcamp: Steve Garfield's Thunderstorm of Podcasting

Steve Garfield's session was awesome!  I learned a lot about some simple ways to get started with podcasting that don't cost a lot of money or require a huge amount of technical skill.   The key will be to play with this technique to get the quality better and better.   But, I'm relieved that I don't need to pony up lots of money.

While the sound and visual look may not be polished, one could perfect their skills at guerrila podcasting/videocasting so the quality didn't detract from the content.  I think this is a good way to just start to explore the medium and this genre of podcasting/videocasting without lots of money or time.   

I aslo  think it is a fabulous technique for capturing and sharing knowledge from conferences and other nonprofit gatherings as I noted here. 

Steve introduced himself and his site

Here are my notes:

1.   Blogging:  It's all about podcasting and video podcasting.   Many folks subscribe to Itunes, but how do you talk back to the person who made the show, find out about it.  That's why a blog is important.  Your blog is your place.  They can listen to the audio, follow links, and leave comments.   You can have a conversation about your content with people on your blog.

2.  You Can Use Your Phone or your digital camera with video:  He demonstrated how to do an audio podcast with your cell phone and a video podcast with his camera using hipcast.   (I caught some of his demo on my digital camera - here's him shooting the video, uploading the video, and doing the cell phone podcast.)    There were lots of questions about how long you can record on hipcast, the phone number, and some technical questions. 

He said the free and cheap programs for video making are imovie (mac) or moviemaker (pc) or quicktime pro.  His camera is a Cannon SD300, but the newer versions have better audio quality.

I saw how to do podcasts with a cell phone at NCDD, but I didn't know that Hipcast will translate your avi or other video format into a more friendly format and post on your blog as a flash video with a link to the Quicktime format.    Questions about the fee and other services that host video were asked and Steve pointed to his site where there are answers to these and other questions..

How to get the best quality in video? - Steve has a squiddo lens.  He explained compression really well.  He shared his settings.  He uses quicktime pro to export it.  The settings are decent quality and work on an IPOD.   Check his Learn About Video Blogging page.

Audacity is the standard free program.  It does everything you need.   It's free.   

Guidelines for raw footage versus editing time.  Steve did the video and audio without editing.  This style of podcasting and videocasting are called "moment showing" coined by Jay Dedman. - It is about capturing a moment and putting it out there.   Not edited.  Over time you can look at them and they tell a story.   He could spend 7 hours on a three minute video.   He is showing us the easy way to get in. 

Like the famous line in the Graduate, "plastics" when asked about the future:  Steve told us:

This is the future of citizen journalist!  Nokia N93 -- camera phone that takes video and has wifi and can post to the Internet immediately.

UPDATE:  Here's my first podcast, an interview with Steve Garfield.

Technorati Tags: podcamp

I'm going to PodCamp, damn it!

Despite the catastrophic computer failure today, I'm back.  Well, sort of.  I triaged everything.  I thought, what is the minimum I need to feel less anxiety and still attend podcamp tommorrow?  And, so, I'm going.